


In The Shelter Of Your Arms

by nesrynfaliq



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOTAR - Freeform, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6896038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nesrynfaliq/pseuds/nesrynfaliq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little series of hurt/comfort fics set at the end of ACOTAR if Lucien had been able to visit Feyre more often Under The Mountain.</p>
<p>Part 1: Lucien comes to see her the night before her first trial, after she named herself to save him from Rhysand’s mind control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Shelter Of Your Arms

“I can’t stay long,” Lucien’s voice, strained and hoarse, interrupts my idle, useless musings about Amarantha’s riddle without warning and I jump, startled out of my reverie.

That at least draws a faint smile from him, though it’s short-lived and never quite reaches his russet eye the way his smiles used to do at the Spring Court.

He steps further into my cell, shaking his head, “They’re watching me too closely after today.”

I nod, understanding what he’s risking being here in this festering place with so many shadows and monsters eager to earn Amarantha’s favour and indulge in the cruelty of others in one go, “Thank you for coming,” I say as Lucien flops gracelessly down onto the floor beside me, legs sprawled out in front of him.

This time the amusement does manage to spark in the eye that fixes on me as his smirking lips part to say evenly, “Well I know how much you must have missed me, Feyre. Being without me is the very worst torment Amarantha could inflict on you, isn’t it?”

I chuck the mouldy heel of the bread from my miserable excuse for lunch at his head. He dodges it, snickering, but he makes me smile.

That too is short-lived however as he turns to me, uncharacteristically serious and says, “How are you feeling? About your trial?”

“Fine,” i say shakily, voice taut, not even convincing myself with the feeble attempt at indifferent ease.

Lucien snorts, clearly not convinced either, “You’d never make a good emissary,” he tells me, stretching back against the wall of my cell, “You’re a terrible liar.”

I frown, oddly stung for a moment, then I say, “I don’t know if it says something bad about me…Or about you.”

“Lying is necessary in politics,” he replies, waving his hand dismissively, “And I’m good at it. Or else I’d be piss-poor at my job.” I can see it. Lucien’s honeyed tongue has probably done as much for the Spring Court as Tamlin’s strength and power, “But,” he adds, rather pointedly, swivelling his good eye on to me, “I don’t like lying to my friends.”

I sigh, understanding what he’s getting at. A half a dozen nonchalant responses present themselves to me but I dismiss them each in turn and eventually I end up admitting, “I’m scared.”

“Good,” Lucien says grimly, “If you weren’t scared of Amarantha…Well, she’d probably like that,” he says, dragging a hand through his long copper hair, “If you’re not scared of her then you’re not on your guard and that makes you easier for her to trick and manipulate.”

“The way she tricked the High Lords?” Lucien nods and I sigh again, slumping back hopelessly against the cold wall.

Then I study him more closely, how pale he is, the shadows haunting that usually bright russet eye, “Are you all right?” I ask softly, “After what she had Rhysand do to you I mean?”

A shiver that’s more answer than anything he might say tears through his body but he controls it, stifling it quickly and then he only shrugs, “IT dragged up some bad memories and it wasn’t entirely pleasant but…”he trials off, shifting restlessly, but I know him well enough to see past the attempt at indifferent nonchalance.

He’s twitchy and on edge and he has every right to be after what was done to him. I wait and he finally shrugs again and says evasively, his words a little clipped, “I’m dealing with it.”

“Lucien-“ I begin, knowing what even the faintest brush of Rhysand’s power had felt like, barely able to imagine what it had done to him when he had been doing far more than playing and trifling.

“I’ll live,” Lucien bites out,  a snap in his voice I’ve rarely heard there before, “You have more important things to worry about.” With my trial looming the next day I can’t find a way to argue with that, “Besides,” he adds, shifting restlessly beside me, jostling me as he does so, “I’ve been through worse without you holding my hand you know, I’m a big boy.”

“You’re a big prick, that’s what you are,” I growl at him as he smirks at me, “I don’t know why I bothered,” I tell him tartly. But I’m smiling again because of him; and maybe that’s why.

I pause a moment, hesitating before I say quietly, “Your father and brothers are here.” Lucien tautens beside me, but not enough to put me off going on to say, “Have they- I mean are you-“I break off awkwardly, hoping he gets the gist of my concerns.

Lucien toys idly with a loose thread of his tunic before he says with only a trace of steel to betray him in his otherwise smooth and even reply, “I’m dealing with them too.”

I don’t look away or speak, keeping my focus pinned on him, giving him space, time to think, and eventually he obliges me with a heavy sigh, as though he has so many better things to do with his time than have this conversation with me.

“I’ve gotten good at it as emissary,” he says slowly, his voice oddly controlled, “There’s a lot to be said for the clenching of fists and teeth and a vivid, brutal imagination,” He smiles easily but I don’t return it.

“I couldn’t do that,” I find myself saying darkly, “Go back there, see them, treat with them after they-“ I break off, wincing. Lucien has gone so still beside me, like a forest pool that’s remained undiscovered and untouched by light or life in centuries, “I’m sorry,” I blurt, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s all right,” he pauses, picking up a few pieces of straw from the damp floor and weaving them together, his fingers deft and swift, as though he’s practiced at this, but he doesn’t look at what he’s doing, as though he just needs something to keep his hands busy, stop them from shredding something apart.

“The first time Tamlin sent me there with terms my father met me in the same room where they’d killed her,” he stumbles slightly over the word ‘killed’ and I hiss in sympathetic anger at the deliberate cruelty of Lucien’s father, forcing him to return to the hall where he’d made him watch his lover die, “I hadn’t seen him, hadn’t seen any of them since the day I left,” he continues, his voice strangely flat and empty, “I took one look at him and had to excuse myself so I could throw up for a few hours before I could speak with him,” he admits to me, “I was there for two weeks. I barely ate or slept and every time I looked at my father I, I saw her die.”

“Why?” I breathe, unable to stop myself, clenching my hands into fists to try and stop their shaking, “Why did you go? Why did Tamlin make you go?”

“I was his emissary,” Lucien says slowly, frowning slightly, “We needed the trade agreement that had been proposed and I knew that court better than anyone, knew all of the dark secrets, where all of the skeletons were buried, what buttons to push,” he swallows slightly, a shadow passing over his face at a memory I don’t dare ask about, “I was best suited to negotiate with them. And I got it done.”

“He could have sent someone else,” I say through gritted teeth, hands still clenched into tight fists, “What you went through…” I trail off, not sure how to put my turbulent thoughts into words.

Lucien is quiet for so long that I wonder if I’ve somehow pushed him too far and that he’s shut down on me but, just as I’m about to give up on getting an answer from him, “I can’t pick and choose when to serve him,” he says, his voice low and restrained, “I made him my High Lord, he claimed me as one of his subjects. I couldn’t respond to that by disobeying him whenever it might make me a little uncomfortable, it would have made him appear weak to the other courts.”

He swallows, his throat bobbing and a thick emotion I’ve never heard from him before laces his next words, “I owe him, Feyre,” he looks at me, “He gave me that position, that purpose, that place with him when I had _nothing_ , less than nothing. I was nameless, titleless, landless and homeless and he took me in. He saved my life that night, in more ways than one. That is a debt I will never be able to fully pay back. If he asked me to live at the Autumn Court again, that place where they butchered the female I loved right in front of me and never apologised for it, never showed any remorse or regret for what they did to me, I would do it. To serve him. I would have to do it.”

I nod slowly, “I understand,” I say quietly, my throat constricted, and I do.

The promise my mother made me swear, the purpose that she gave me…I carried it out for years, no matter the dangers that it carried me in to, no matter the lack of gratitude on my family’s part, because it was all I had to live for, all that was keeping me going, and not just because of the food I was gathering. My debt to my mother is the same as the one that has Lucien serving Tamlin so loyally and for the same reasons: it’s the only thing that either of us has to make us who we are, to anchor us to anything, to make us matter to anyone.

I shift beside him, shaking my head, “I still couldn’t do that. Smile and flatter and make nice. Just hearing what they did to you…Every time I look at them I want to tear out their throats,” I say, a bite of venom in my voice that makes Lucien blink at me in mild surprise, something like approval flickering in his eye.

My words draw another taut smile from Lucien, “Now that I would pay good money to see,” he says and I know he can play politics and fake smiles but he’ll never forgive them, not really, and he’ll never forget, for as long as he lives, what they did, and if he ever gets the chance…

“Still,” Lucien says with a pronounced , melodramatic sigh, “It’s another reason you’d never make a good emissary,” he grins at me, “Court jester perhaps,” he suggests.

I throw another lump of bread at him. Hard.

“No,” I say tartly as he dodges again, “That position is already reserved for you. _I’d_ pay good money to see you in motley and a little belled hat.”

He laughs, “I’ll dress in motley for you if you ever get the chance to gut any of my brothers and you take it.”

I study him for a long moment, “Deal,” I say and his eyes twinkle. Then I add darkly, “Half the reason I told Amarantha my name was to wipe the smiles off your bastard brothers’ faces,” I snarl, wondering how anyone could be as cold as they were while Rhysand tortured him right in front of them.

“And the other half?” Lucien smirks, that russet eye gleaming, even in the darkness of the cell, “Don’t tell me you’ve gotten fond of me after all, Feyre.”

I don’t smile. I suppose in a way I have but a more serious thought has occurred to me at the reminder of what had been done to him earlier today. I keep my voice low and controlled when I ask softly, looking right into his eyes as I do, “If I hadn’t said anything. If I hadn’t stopped it, stopped her, would you really have let him break you?”

A lingering look for him and I hold his gaze throughout, steady, resilient, “You already know the answer to that,” he murmurs finally.

I do. I know he would have.

“For Tamlin? Or for me?” I find myself asking, throat tight.

Thinking about what he said about his debt to Tamlin, about the oath he made him, I expect one of his usual snide or sardonic quips but instead he says, soft and sincere, still looking into my eyes, “Both.”

I blink at him, a little taken aback,” Thank you,” I say.

Reaching out I tentatively take his hand in mine. He stares down at the sight for a long time before he swallows hard and looks back up at me as he says, “Thank you for ending it,” a shudder runs through him and I share it, the memory of that awful power still haunting me.

I gently squeeze his hand. He shakes his head and pulls away from me, dragging his fingers through his hair again, “After everything I said to you; did to you at the manor…You still…Still stopped it, still gave her your name. For me,” he whispers, his voice soft, something like wonder coating his words.

“You might be an arrogant prick, Lucien,” I say and he blinks up at me in time to catch my wry smile, “But you didn’t deserve that. I couldn’t just sit there and let you be tortured, let your entire identity and existence be wiped out right in front of me and do nothing. Not like that.”

I hadn’t realised that it would have been important to him, that it would have mattered, that he would have cared at all and what he’d been willing to let them do…

Trying to lighten things I say, “Maybe I have gotten fond of you after all.”

“Cauldron boil me,” he mutters and I laugh again, the sound cracked and hoarse but it fills the small cell with a much needed warmth.

He squeezes my hand and then abruptly springs to his feet, “I have to go,” he says, face taut, he looks at me from the door, “I won’t be able to come back before your trial,” he tells me and I nod, drawing my knees up to my chest, “Try not to die, won’t you?” he says, mouth twisting in a grimace.

I force a rather wobbly smile, “Don’t tell me you’ve gotten fond of me, Lucien.”

He smiles back at me, a little too tightly to be entirely believable, then whispers softly, “Good luck,” and then he’s gone and I have nothing and no-one left to make me smile as the darkness gathers around me and slowly brings the dawn…And my first trial.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! :) feedback is, as always, very much appreciated.


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